


I'll Be Your Cover

by Duck_Life



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pillow Talk, Post-Episode: s07e04 Service
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-31 00:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8556106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Rick and Michonne talk about how to live without losing themselves.





	

It gets dark after Negan leaves. Everyone’s tired but no one really feels like sleeping. Folks in Alexandria kind of wander around, looking almost surprised when they see another person. Father Gabriel stands up in the watchtower, looking like he’s in quiet contemplation. Aaron and Eric sit on their front steps, talking without really saying anything.

Carl changes Judith into her pajamas and brushes her teeth, and then once she’s down he lays stretched out on the couch staring at the ceiling. Deflated. Defeated.

On the floor of Rick’s bedroom, Rick and Michonne crawl under the mass of blankets and try not to think. She still hasn’t told him about the burned mattresses. It’s a puzzle, she thinks, or a messed up game of Jenga. How much can he take. What’s going to break him, or is he already broken, or has he been broken all along.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, so quietly she wonders if she made it up.

He’s on his back with his hands folded in front of him, looking sort of like a corpse in a coffin. “It’s okay,” she says, but it’s not, but it’s not, but it’s not.

“I wish it were just me,” he admits. “I wish you and Carl and Judy… hell, everyone. I wish you could all go somewhere else and not have to deal with him.”

“You’d be alone.”

“I know.”

“I’m not okay with that.” She rolls over on her side but it’s not any more comfortable. She finds she can recall the exact feel of their mattress, the slight dip that was _hers_ , the firm place in the middle that was _theirs_. She wonders if she should start memorizing other things— the shower, the kitchen chairs, her clothes, her sword, Rick. She wonders what else she’s going to lose. “I said I was gonna try,” she says. “And I will. But I need you to try too. To… to just stay.” A slight shudder rolls through her and she tugs the blankets closer around herself. “Rick, I don’t want to lose you either.”

Rolling on his side as well so they’re facing each other, he reaches out and pulls a loc back from her face, brushes it aside. “He’s not gonna kill me,” Rick says. “I can tell. He needs me. I’m gonna be fine.”

Michonne sighs. “That’s not what I mean. I saw Daryl today.” She takes his hand, runs her thumb along the edge of it. It feels cold. “Just… silent. Walking around. Doing whatever Negan… And I don’t want to see you like that.”

“Michonne—”

“No, listen,” she says, a loud whisper so her voice won’t break. “I know how it is, how it’s always been. We have to give up all these little pieces so we get to live. How we feel doesn’t matter, as long as we’re still alive. And I get that, alright, I _do_.” She squeezes his hand. “But this isn’t going to be forever. I can’t believe that. Somehow, this is going to end. And… and you’ll still be standing. I just want to know that… that that’ll be _you_ and not some other person you had to turn into to survive.”

He brings their entwined hands upward, kisses her wrist. “I’m always me,” he promises. “As long as I’m alive I’m still me.”

“But there’s a difference between living and surviving,” she says.

“I know.”

“And I can’t see you start acting like one of _them_.”

“The Saviors?”

“The dead.”

And suddenly Rick’s too far away from her, even beside each other as they are on the floor. He pulls her close, his head tucked over her shoulder, and breathes in. “Someday we’ll figure this out,”  
 he promises. “Someday it’ll all work out, and it’ll all be worth it. All the little pieces we lost.”

She laughs without feeling it. “Someday this pain will be useful.”

“What?”

“Deanna used to… it was a saying of hers,” Michonne says, wondering how Deanna would handle Negan if she were still here. How things would be different, how they would be the same. “Someday this pain will be useful,” she says again. “But you know, right now… It isn’t useful, it just hurts. And it just makes everything harder.”

“I know.” He pulls back, and his hands frame her face and he kisses her and for a second he doesn’t feel quite so broken. “I know.”

It takes a long time for them to fall asleep, but they do eventually, tangled together on the floor, broken little pieces trying to fit together.


End file.
